Stop Trying to Apply Deeper, Intellectual Meaning to Dolly — She's Already Much Smarter Than You Are

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This week's issue of The New Yorker features, by way of a review of the book "She Come by It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs" by Sarah Smarsh, yet another highbrow attempt to divine deeper meaning from the simple pleasure that is Ms. Parton (although there is nothing simple about her). As Susan Sontag once said regarding art criticism, some things should be allowed to simply exist. Dolly — a national treasure and kick-ass woman who speaks for herself, through her charity, her humanity and, of course, her own words and music — is one of those things that need not be analyzed to death by a bunch of overeducated, pseudo-intellectual city folk. Kindly leave her out of your cerebral circle jerk.

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